Department Of Health Policy

A new study from researchers at Vanderbilt and Harvard universities, published this week in the journal Health Affairs, uses federal health survey data to evaluate community-based efforts to address smoking, obesity and other health conditions such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Read More

A new large-scale study examining barriers to healthcare through the lens of gender identity finds that transgender men and women tend to fare poorly. The study, by researchers at Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota, appears in The Milbank Quarterly. Read More

Since 2014 the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has assisted lower- and moderate-income people who buy insurance on their own on the individual market, providing premium subsidies and discounts on out-of-pocket expenses. Under the law, people who don’t carry compliant insurance face a penalty, the so-called individual mandate. Large employers who don’t offer insurance are also penalized. Read More

Researchers in the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health are testing whether a unique “couples-centered” intervention developed in the southern African nation of Mozambique can reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Read More

Fewer uninsured patients are walking through the doors of Emergency Departments in states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), even though the total number of visits has increased since 2014, according to an Annals of Emergency Medicine study released Monday. Read More

Stephen W. Patrick, M.D., MPH, MS, has been chosen to receive the Nemours Child Health Services Research Award, recognizing his work surrounding neonatal abstinence syndrome, a drug withdrawal syndrome experienced by infants exposed to opioids while in utero. Read More

The National Vaccine Program Office in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has selected William Schaffner, M.D., to receive its 2017 NVPO UpShot Award in Vaccine Communication. Read More

Hepatitis C infections among pregnant women nearly doubled from 2009-2014, likely a consequence of the country’s increasing opioid epidemic that is disproportionately affecting rural areas of states including Tennessee and West Virginia. Read More

Male infants are more likely at birth than their female counterparts to be diagnosed with drug withdrawal symptoms, also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), and to require treatment, according to a new Vanderbilt study published in Hospital Pediatrics. Read More

Vindell Washington, M.D., MHCM, former national coordinator for health information technology with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, spoke at Vanderbilt University Medical Center last week. Read More

Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act provides patients with a greater choice of hospital facilities, Vanderbilt researchers have found. Read More

Social risk factors including income, education and ethnic background influence health outcomes and should be taken into account in Medicare payment models, according to a New England Journal of Medicine “Perspective” titled “Social Risk Factors and Equity in Medicare Payment.” Read More

The researchers examine whether the financial struggles of some major insurers under the Affordable Care Act reflect a policy failure or a mismatch of these firms’ capabilities and strategies to a newly created market. Read More

Proposed Medicaid reforms are similar to the capped federal financing system in place during the '50s and early '60s, when states generally reimbursed a much smaller proportion of health care for the needy. Read More

“Epigenetic signatures” in DNA may present an opportunity for prevention of or early intervention in childhood obesity. Read More

Russell Rothman, M.D., professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Health Policy, Vice President for Population Health Research, and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research, has been named president-elect of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare (AACH). He will serve as president beginning in January 2018. Read More

A trans-institutional team of Vanderbilt social scientists and medical professionals will look at how laws affecting LGBT individuals and families affect their health and the economy. Read More

A Vanderbilt University study published today in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry may help patients prescribed higher doses of certain antidepressants feel better about attributed cardiac risks. Read More

Traditional healers in sub-Saharan have a high rate of exposure to blood, putting them at risk for HIV and hepatitis C. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is part of a 6-year, $4.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to improve the use of prescribed medication by sickle cell patients. Read More